As they would be, the West Indies Cricket Board’s top men, Julian Hunte and Ernest Hilaire, are upbeat about the regional first-class season that started on Friday in Jamaica.
- Cozier on Sunday
“The season promises to be an exciting one and we are really looking forward to some tough, hard and competitive cricket on the field and positive support and enjoyment by the fans off the field,” was how president Hunte saw it in an official pre-tournament statement.
Both he and Hilaire, the latest chief executive, have emphasised that the aim is to revive fading spectator interest, mainly through the introduction of four day-night matches using an experimental pink ball.
“We intend to bring the game back to the people and have them participate in a major way,” was how Hunte put it.
Hilaire spoke of “the creation of a cricket festival atmosphere to offer more scope for sponsorship and event promotion.”
Given recent history, we all say hurrah to that. On the face of it, the WICB has suddenly stirred itself from its prolonged lethargy and come up with some bright ideas.
Yet the reality is that, for all the new floodlit matches, Hunte and Hilaire are whistling in the dark.
Their hopes were compromised even before a ball was bowled by the financial need to reduce the tournament from two rounds to one.
They have been further diminished by the immediate absence of 10 of the most prominent players from four of the teams.
Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Smith are engaged in Australia’s simultaneous Twenty20 Big Bash and would only be available for the last three rounds, if at all.
Of those still in the Caribbean, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Adrian Barath, Sulieman Benn, Jerome Taylor, Fidel Edwards and Darren Bravo are in various stages of injury, from serious through mysterious to minor.
Almost inevitably, there was the embarrassment of a delayed start to the opening match between Trinidad and Tobago and the Combined Colleges and Campuses (CCC) at Jarrett Park in Montego Bay after the pitch reportedly sweated under the covers.
And Ezra Stuart, reporting on the first day between Barbados and the Leewards at Kensington Park in the Barbados press, noted that there was a “bumpy outfield with several areas devoid of grass – unsuited for first-class cricket.”
These are common complaints, season after season, but over which Hunte and Hilaire might claim the WICB has little, or no, control.
On other aspects, there is no evidence that they are backing their words with action.
There has been no promotional campaign to ignite the public’s imagination or to win back sponsors who have been missing now for two seasons.
We have had no details of the promised “cricket festival atmosphere”, nothing of the methods the WICB intends to implement to have the people “participate in a major way”.
Hilaire explained that the new format of staging each round of three matches in one territory would “pose less logistical and physical challenges with travel and hotel arrangements.”
It would require a marketing wizard, boosted by some expensive devices, to whip up local enthusiasm for the 12 matches in neutral territories and the WICB is yet to locate such an individual.
Hilaire’s original undertaking was that the board would look “to utilise some of the wonderful facilities we have in the region as we seek to develop players who will be able to represent the people of the Caribbean at the highest level.”
Yet only seven of the nine facilities either constructed or renovated for the 2007 World Cup will be used, five hosting a single match each.
Already, while Sabina Park remains idle, the teams have had to put up with sub-standard conditions at Jarrett Park and Kensington Park.
In his pre-tournament address, Hunte felt compelled to stress that players “play in the true spirit of the game and have respect for self, respect for others and respect for the game.”
The target of his comments was obvious. In his annual report last August, at the height of the WIPA withdrawal of its members from the Bangladesh series, Hunte charged that “it was simply a case of players feeling so invincible, drunken by the numerous occasions on which they had gotten away with whatever behaviour they chose, that they can act with wanton disrespect for the game of cricket.”
Now, he warned, the game had to be respected.
“In the Caribbean we are fortunate to have a group of excellent match officials who will be in charge so we know the game will be in good hands,” he said.
As he hinted in his August comment, the truth is quite the opposite.
Timid umpires and match referees have repeatedly failed to take action against blatant indiscipline and deliberate time-wasting and Hunte has now put them on notice as much as the players.
Whether this and the other lofty expectations of the two WICB leaders are attainable is a moot point. We should soon know.